A pair of Jhaptal recordings from Cycles and more! WAY more!

Holy posting frequency Batman!

Suba Sankaran in the Cycles Space

As I mentioned, during the month of March, I ran a month-long creative collaboration laboratory (aka 'Happening') in the Arcadia Gallery in Toronto. The project was called Cycles. Basically, I moved my studio (instruments, recording studio, cameras etc) into the gallery, and recorded/ video'd/ photographed anyone who came in, doing whatever they wanted to do. This resulted in a LOT of material being recorded, among other things. (click that link for some crazy crazy stats!)

I had no idea what was going to happen, or if anyone was even going to come, so I made a rough plan: record a tabla solo (peshkar->chakradar), in various talas and shruthis, and crowd-source the accompaniment by recording and/or sampling people playing things to build leharas.

Well....people brought so much amazingness and wickedocity, I was pulled off the tabla-solo path pretty early BUT...I did record the afore-posted Tintal Peshkar video, as well as a Jhaptal Palta Theka and a completely wacked out Jhaptal Kaida.

Ready for some Palta Theka action? Here we go:

...
So...let's get this out of the way: non-traditional accompaniment! The credits on this piece are:

Ed Hanley-tabla, voice, udu, shaker, programming, recording, mixing
Larry Graves-Green Egyptian Parade Drum
Lisa Patterson-Duduk
Adam Ogilvie (age 2.5)-bell

This composition is an amalgam of stuff from a variety of sources, stitched together on the fly:
A Palta Theka from Pt Suresh Talwalkar
A Palta Theka from Pt Swapan Chaudhuri
Another Palta Theka from Pt Swapan Chaudhuri
Chunks of material from my lessons with mrdangam maestro Karaikudi Mani

The starting point (after theka of course) is:

Dhin - Na - - Dha - Dhin - Na - Dha - kreDha - Dhin - Na - 

and we end up at:

Dhin na Dha trkt Dhin na Dhin Dhin na
Dhin na Dhin Dhin na Tin na Dhin Dhin na

 Everything was video'd, so, when I get time, I will edit the video for this one.

Cricketty

What else...the G tabla I was using has a pretty significant buzz, so I decided to join it, rather than fight it, and I threw a wee bit of ye olde overdrive plugin on the tabla track. The lowlow kick-drummy sound is actually an udu drum run through major filters, and the cricketty chik chik sound is actually trashy can-lid jingles from my green Egyptian Parade Drum. oh, and Yay cheezy drum programming! And whoa...isn't the duduk just about the most haunting thing you've EVER heard??
A. Mazing.

OK! time to go to space dear readers!

Ever wondered what a Kaida would sound like with the baya at double speed, and the tabla at single speed? What about that same idea, but with 8 bayas in unison, and 8 tabla in unison? With a bass veena, didgeridoo and gongs as accompaniment? Well, your wondering-about-all-that days are OVER!

This one is in 2 parts: alap, then the kaida.




...

(    (  ( (( Bass Veena )) )  )    )

So, first of all, the alap...WHOA! That, ladies and gentlemen is Justin Gray playing his custom made Bass Veena. Imagine a lot of reverb when you say that, because it's amazing:
(    (  ( (( Bass Veena )) )  )    )

He's playing Raga Bikaskhani Todi, which is one of my very favourite ragas...a sombre morning raga...from the wiki:

It is said that this raga was created by Bilas Khan, son of Miyan Tansen. Bilas Khan is said to have created raga Bilaskhani Todi after Tansen's death; an interesting legend of this improvisation (it differs only in detail from Tansen's Todi), has it that Bilas composed it while grief-stricken at the wake itself, and that Tansen's corpse moved one hand in approval of the new melody.

Slightly creepy, but cool. 

So, the kaida. Guess what? It's this old chestnut again:

Dha-trekeDhinnagen Dhagetete Dhage trekeDhinnagena
DhagenaDhatreke Dhinne Dhagetete Dhage trekeThinnakena

Yup...same one I play here, here AND here. Yes. I like this kaida.

you put your left hand in,
you take your right hand out...

The how: First, i recorded the whole kaida to click in logic (you can hear it come in every other cycle or so) so I'd have a guide. Then I put a shawl over the tabla, looped the section I wanted to record, and recorded (in loop mode) the theme, each variation and the tihai, eight times each. Logic makes a new file for each loop, and stacks them, so once you're done, you have, in this case anyway, a massive wall of bayas. THEN...I did the same thing for the tabla part, but at single speed...which was a bit of a trip at times...very interesting and unexpected intersections were happening...syncopating in a whole new way. But the tihai was a problem!!: the tihai I play on baya in double speed will not work in single speed! They won't land on sam together!! So...new tihai for the tabla part, with a Karnatic style expansion of Dhas...see if you can hear both tihais going by at the same time. Trippy!

There is some crazy patterning going on...the baya part is usually twice as long as the tabla part (because of Bhari/Khali, the tabla part is played twice for each single baya part, if that makes sense) so in this case the spread is closed: for each long baya part (bhari/khali) there is only 1 repeat of the tabla part. And now even I'm lost. Anyway. I thought it was cool.

Talia says: remember! safety first when gonging!

What else...my friends Larry and Talia did a gong improv to an early version of the recording (before Justin recorded (  ( (Bass Veena) )  ) which involved hanging gongs from the ceiling (there was a LOT of stuff hanging from the ceiling actually) and gonging gorgeously while standing precariously on a chair and a ladder. At some point, I didgeri-did the didgeridoo and the track was didgeri-done.

But that's not all! Earlier, I sampled some folks playing bells and singing bowls too...here are the full credits before I forget anyone:

Ed Hanley-tabla, baya, didgeridoo
Larry Graves, Talia McGuire-gongs
Justin Gray-bass veena
Laurie Stevenson, Wendy Fisher, Lori Fox Rossi, Vicki Persig, Christine Hein & Suba Sankaran-singing bowls and bells

and finally...here's a playlist of all the videos. (that link goes to the playlist, or see below...there's a 'next' button beside the play/pause button).
Each one deserves its own blog post, though not all of them are tabla-centric, they are all interesting in their own ways...poets, a dancer with Parkinson's disease, a whirling dervish, a lego stop motion animation in eleven beats! Hmm. That last one might have to get its own blog post:

Pair of Rupak recordings (plus video)

Quick post, mostly music:

I rediscovered my Soundcloud account recently (honestly...it's nigh impossible to keep track of all the places one has to post muic, video, gigs etc etc these days. sigh).

anyway...here are a couple things I haven't posted before:

A rupak solo I recorded, apparently, 4 years ago. I have a very dim memory of recording this, but it sounds ok. Lots of different composition types...parans, kaida, rela:


and an excerpt from an Autorickshaw tune with a Rupak kaida-rela. This is an adaptation of a composition I learned from Pt Swapan Chaudhuri. I added the rela-type elements, and it features an experimental layered vocal lehara by Suba Sankaran (daughter of mrdangam maestro Trichy Sankaran). EDIT: I played this kaida yesterday, and it's definitely a kaida, even with all the trkt fills I added. Dunno what I was thinking...I kinda rushed this post a bit. Bonus info: 2 unison tabla tracks via multitrack overdubbing:


and here's the whole song:


AND! Because why not, since it's Rupak day: a raw, early version of my Rupak kaida video:

Double post: Heavy Metal Tabla in Chartal Ki Sawari and 30 min Jhaptal solo video

Well, it's not really heavy metal, but it's definitely not traditional...or is it?

Let's see. Traditional tala? check. Lehara? check. Theka? check. Mukra? Gat? Parans? final Charkradar tihai? checkcheckcheckcheck. Recitation? check. Screaming guitar solo? err....ummm...

Yup, passes the tradition test for me, with the one exception of the sounds, which begs the question...what makes traditional music traditional? Is it the content, vocabulary and grammar? or is it the instruments? pure sounds only? the people who play it? the time or place it is performed? what?

I bent the tabla tradition as much as I could here, and it didn't break.

So, what do we have:
The tala is Chartal ki Sawari, an 11 beat tala:

Dhin terekite Dhin Na Thun Na Kat Ta Dhin..Na..Dhin..Na..

The sawari (lit 'ride') at the end (last 3 beats) is what makes this tala so awesome. Count 'em: Tkt Tkt Tkt Tkt. You can geek-out a bit and count the tala as 3 groups of 4, with the last 4 squeezed into 3 beats:
1...2...3...4...
1...2...3...4...
1..2..3..4..

All the tabla material was taught by Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri in a workshop in Toronto. I'm worried he may disown me after this track, but it had to be done, and as I said, I don't think I've broken the tradition at all.

All the material Swapanji taught us in the workshop followed the sawari beautifully, so, rather than just being material in 11 beats, it is all definitely material in Chartal Ki Sawari. An important, but subtle, distinction.

Material: (in order of appearance)
Mukra (gerenage terekite dhagethrekethunnakena...no recitation)
Gat (takatakataka dheneghene takatakataka dheneghene...)
Paran (Dha KreDha ne Dha Dha kiteDhet Ta...)
Paran (Din Din nanakitetetaka...)
Paran (Takite Dha-ne Dha- Ge di gerenage...)
Paran (TakaterekiteTaka teteketagedighene...)
Paran (dhetedhetedhagetete kredhetetetagetete...no recitation)
Tihai (from a kaida)

I derived the bass-synth lehara from a Jaunpuri gat that sitarist Chris Hale plays...and in fact, I play the same tihai in the video (end of kaida that starts at 0.44) and at the end of the track above. It's a little obscured by drumkit-guitar chaos above though. Here:

Personell:
Ben Riley-drums
Rich Brown-bass
Justin Abedin-guitar
and I played played tabla, vox, recorded, edited, mixed etc
Mastered by Andy Krehm

OK OK THAT'S IT ! Enough hanky-pankying around with this fusion-con-fusion business!!

Here's a Jhaptal solo I played recently. Informal setting, major tabla geekage in the room:

This is a rehash/shorter version of the big Jhaptal solo I played last year, but covers peshkar, kaidas, kaida rela, a sort of palta theka-rela hybrid, parans, thukra and chakradar. Material from my teachers Pt Suresh Talwalkar, Pt Swapan Chaudhuri, Pt Anindo Chaterjee and Sri Subhajyoti Guha, who very generously organized this concert. Thanks Subho!! It should be noted: Rattan and I didn't rehearse at all, and in fact, he arrived at the hall 5 min before we started playing.

Pics:

 

And this concludes this latest post. Thanks for reading, listening and watching. Please post your irate comments about the Chartal Ki Sawari piece below, but you should probably buy the track first ;)

'Cycles' Collaborative Multimedia Creation Laboratory

I'm 4 days into a month-long creation process at an art gallery in Toronto.

Because this is a tabla blog here, I can geek out on what I'm trying to do, but first....here's the first video from the project, a Tintal Peshkar with esraj accompaniment by the amazing Rattan Bhamrah:

Cycles: Part 1 from Ed Hanley on Vimeo.

So...first the project, then what's going on tabla-wise in that video.

The project (which has its own website here: http://www.cycles-film.com/ ) kind of fell into my lap. The folks who book the gallery approached me to see if I would be interested in doing a show. I balked initially, as I'm a musician (and yes, photo and video are also creative languages for me) but I had no idea what I'd do for a 'visual art' show. But I though about it a bit, and thought it might be cool to record a tabla solo, 52 Kaidas style (i.e. in discreet chunks) and crowd-source the accompaniment by recording and sampling anyone who came into the gallery. Then of course, I'd have to shoot music videos for each piece, and THEN, I knew I'd have to stitch it all together into a film.

Did i mention they approached me in mid-February, and the slot they wanted me to fill started March 1st? Yeah. So...I'm still kind of forming the idea of the whole thing as I go.

Much like a Kaida, there are rules, and the fact that there are rules is actually freeing, rather than restricting.

The rules are:
1. record all the parts of a tabla solo (peshkar, kaidas, kaida relas, relas, parans, thukras, chakradars etc) but in different talas (I'm planning Tintal, Jhaptal, Chartal Ki Sawari and Rupak but who knows)

Larry, Udu-ing.

2. Everything has to be created and recorded in the space....audio, video, photos, paintings, dance, you name it (this is one place where it's completely open ended). If someone wants to come down and vocalize bird sounds while they dance around in a feathered suit, I will record it, and I will integrate it into the piece. (tastefully, of course)

3. It has to be all inclusive: if you can clap your hands once, I can sample that clap, and work it into a piece. If you can pluck one note on a guitar, you're in the piece. If you have a FACE, I will take your picture, and you will be in the piece. Open to everyone. 

4. I have to be there, ready for anything, every single day for the entire month of March. And I need to work fast. I cannot agonize over tinytiny details...this project is about raw creation, not crystalline studio perfection. I think that exercising creativity and problem solving skills is important, so this is like a month-long creative boot-camp for me.

5. Ummmm..errr... I'm sure there are more rules, but it's late, and i can't remember. The project website has it all on there already. If you're a Torontonian, stop by. It's a new adventure everyday!

OK! Tabla-time!

I just LOVE this composition!

I learned this from Pandit Suresh Talwalkar in Pune. It's a really lovely arrangement: Peshkar, flowing into a Kaida, flowing into a Rela.

Tihais popping off everywhere, really cool vocabulary, tricky rhythmic phrasing, you name it. And slooooow tempo. I kind of rush through it (and I'm glad I did...the video is over 8 minutes long, which is about 7:45 seconds too long for most of internet-enabled humanity, sadly) but I could hang out on each section for 10 minutes easily.

I'm playing a low D tabla made by Mukta Das, and a baya that he reheaded...a Benares shell that weighs a LOT, very bottom-heavy, and stable.

This is probably (but not definitely) the most traditional presentation of tabla solo material I'll be doing in this project. I'm going to be sampling random strangers, so...there could be tuba, musical saw, gosh...even bongos!

Oh...that video is downloadable! (I'll also upload it to YouTube this evening)

This blog post here talks about how it was made...

I'll cross-post significant videos and recordings here. I recorded a Jhaptal Palta Theka on March 2nd, and now just have to build to accompaniment from whoever turns up, and I have some interesting tabla material planned.

thanks for reading, and head over to Cycles!

OH!

I almost forgot:

This Cycles project is not to be confused with THIS Cycles album, by another Canadian tabla player (high-five!) by the name of Shawn Mativetsky, which you should totally check out. Very cool stuff.

Animated Kaida, TablaVision Residency March 1-31 and Feb 23 concert

Greetings dear readers!

Three announcements:

1. New Video: Animated Kaida

That was: 2 hours of planning, 16 sheets of paper with a 5x5 grid, 1 pencil, 1 eraser, 4 hours of set up, 6 takes (on 2 different tunings), 4 videos, 13 photographs, 3 hours of photoshopping and 4 hours of video editing (punctuated by fits of giggling everytime the toy autorickshaw explodes).

The Kaida:
DhageTeteKeTa TeteKeTa TeteTeteKeTa
DhaTeteKeTa DhatiDhagena DhageThunnakena

Ta=Na
Dehli-style 2 finger Tete

I learned this from Pandit Suresh Talwalkar in Pune.

planning...planning

Awesome AWESOME practice. Slow it waaaay down, and dig into the Tetes. Remember that Ta=Na (NOT Ne). Believe it or not, this kaida will help your Terekite a whole bunch, but don't be gentle. Sweat, work out on it. Play the theme for 20-30 min at a time. Have fun. I play this almost everytime I practice.

A note on tempo: I chose 72 BPM for video reasons: Video framerate: 24FPS + Tempo: 72BPM= 20FPB (an even 20 frames per beat) which was easier for editing…though since I was subdividing each beat into 8, I had to make 1 frame adjustments every few beats. No matter…i'm not a machine, so I had to tweak here and there anyway.

Which leads us right into:

2. 'Cycles' TablaVision Residency

Say hi to Larry.

From March 1-31 I'm going to be moving my audio and video studio into Arcadia Art Gallery (680 Queens Quay West, Toronto) and making an album and a film. I'm not exactly sure what i'm going to do to be perfectly honest, but at the moment it looks like this: record a 2-3 minute tabla piece a day, and shoot & edit video to accompany each piece. A mix of music video and documentary I think ('sounds like a snake eating its own tail' is how one friend put it) . Plus I'll be showing photographs I've taken, incl a series I took of Haridas Vhatkar making tabla and who knows what else.

The pressure to create on a daily basis is part of the process, not to mention that the gallery will be open for a couple of hours a day, so the general public will be able to watch parts going down, editing and mixing going on, video being shot and edited. There will be several cameras kicking around the space, so people will be able to shoot photos and video, not to mention be in photos and video.

A CD and DVD will be available for purchase (as pre-order or after completion). I'll post once I figure out how to do internet pre-sales (Bandcamp…here I come).

I might make a blog so far-flung folks can follow along.

Stay tuned. It could be good, or it could be a slow-motion month-long wipeout of epic proportions!

3. Feb 23rd: Autorickshaw in concert with FreePlay Duo and sitarist Chris Hale

location:
East Side Boom and Gerrard Art Space
1390 Gerrard St E (in the heart of Little India)
Toronto
8PM
$10
http://www.facebook.com/events/121638941345192/

Autorickshaw, in trio form:
Suba Sankaran-voice
Dylan Bell-voice, bass, keys
Ed Hanley-tabla, voice

This video is not the trio, but Dylan did mix this tune, and we'll play it, and this crazy bird will be projected on the wall:



FreePlay Duo (a cappella vocals w loopstation)
Suba Sankaran-voice
Dylan Bell-voice

http://www.freeplayduo.com/



Chris Hale-sitar, voice
Ed Hanley-tabla

Chris and i will be starting the evening with some classical music, he'll join Autorickshaw on some tunes and we'll all do some Bollywood numbers:

Here's the third video from that demo session Chris and I did: Kabhi Kabhi

Chris sounds AWESOME, no?

I'm working on video projections for the whole evening (fingers crossed we can secure a projector) and hopefully we'll video the whole gig.

Should be fun.

ok, all for now,
E

PS oops...almost forgot! I had the amazing Justin Abedin in for a session recently...he laid down some epic guitar parts on track 2 of 10 Talas to a Disco Beat...soon come...soon come:

Sitar & Tabla demos

Greetings!

My friend Chris Hale and I spent an afternoon recording short promotional/demo videos, and here they are:





more stuff soon.
tata!
E

Kaida in Rupak Tal

Greetings!
Happy New Year, and I hope everyone has a stellar 2013!

Here's a quick Kaida in Rupak Tal (7 beat rhythm cycle) to ring in the new year:



So, couple things about this:

Theme
Dha-kiteDhete Dhagena Dha-
KreDhetete KiteDhete Dhagena DhageDhinnagena

I learned this from Pandit Suresh Talwalkar in Pune, on my 2nd study trip, the 'mostly Rupak' trip (as opposed to the 'mostly Jhaptal' trip).

It's a 4-parter, taking 2 cycles of Rupak once you hit double speed.

Very good practice: accenting the Ki and Kre strokes means lots of attention on the baya hand.

The math is awesome: phrases of 11 and 17

The tihai has an 11 microbeat gap, which is played, rather than just left silent:
Dha ge ge ge Di ge ge ge Ta ke ne

Rupak theka is Tin Tin Na Dhin Na Dhin Na , and can also be played 'rin-tin-tin-where's-my-din-din'

I want to post more to this blog, but it's a bit of a production to do an album-level recording every time I want to post...hiring an accompanist, mastering et cetera (esp since the blog really doesn't generate $$ at all) so, I'm going to try a more lo-fi audio-visual approach with backing tracks and/or electric mandolin as accompaniment. I'm still working on new tracks for my album, and will post those as they come up, and I still have to  finish the videos from the Jhaptal Solo in August (omg :P) but hopefully I can generate more posts this way.

Tata!